John Shippen, the U.S. Open and how America remembers its pioneers
First American pro to play in tournament helped pave the way for Charlie Sifford, Tiger Woods and more
Washington, D.C., has never lacked for celebrated figures. While it currently sits in the crosshairs of political controversy, Washington still retains an air of reverence and majesty.
Washington is my hometown, and I am proud of her beauty. I am also cognizant of the symbolism that is to be found all over the city and the people and events that occurred here that represent the constant struggle to close the gap between potential and fulfillment. D.C. has given the world some of its brightest luminaries including Duke Ellington, Marvin Gaye, Elgin Baylor and Kevin Durant. Their names are woven into the cultural fabric of the city and nation. But history is also shaped by people whose contributions are less visible. They are the pioneers who create pathways that others later travel, often without knowing who first cleared the route.
If you ask even knowledgeable golf fans to identify the first American-born golf professional to compete in the U.S. Open, many will draw a blank. But before there was a Tiger Woods, before there was a Charlie Sifford, before the long fight to open the fairways of American golf to all who loved the game regardless of race, there was a teenager from Washington, D.C., who stood his ground against some of the most powerful forces in golf and changed the sport forever.
His name was John Shippen.
The reality that Shippen remains in relative obscurity says as much about the way America remembers its pioneers as it does about Shippen himself.
As someone who was also born and raised in Washington, D.C., I have always been fascinated by the city’s hidden stories. Washington is often viewed through the lens of politics and power, but its true legacy is found in the lives of ordinary people who achieved extraordinary things. Shippen’s story is one of the greatest examples.
Long before he became a golf pioneer, Shippen was simply a young boy growing up in Washington. Born on Dec. 2, 1879, to John Shippen Sr., a Presbyterian minister and Eliza Spotswood Shippen. Shippen’s earliest years were spent in communities east of the Anacostia River. Today, golfers know that area for its proximity to Langston Golf Course, one of the most historically significant public golf courses in the United States. I myself was born not more than a par-5 away from that golf course, one that I would eventually come to help operate.
At the time, however, golf barely existed in America. The game was still largely imported from Scotland and England. The most influential players, instructors and professionals were British. American-born golfers were rare and African American golfers were nearly invisible. Yet history has a way of finding unlikely heroes.
When Shippen was still a teenager, his family moved the family to the Shinnecock Indian Reservation to serve as the local clergyman, where he became connected to Shinnecock Hills Golf Club. The nearby golf club that shared a name with the Shinnecock Nation was still in its infancy, but it was already a powerful force in American golf, one of the founding members of the USGA. Shippen managed to secure a job and the course when he was just 14 years old, clearing brush and maintaining areas around the course.
The club’s professional who had hired Shippen, Scotsman Willie Dunn Jr., recognized Shippen’s work ethic and soon expanded his duties to include caddying, caring for the course, club repair, and scorer/starter duties for member tournaments. It was humble work, but golf has always rewarded humility and curiosity, traits that Shippen had in abundance. Dunn eventually began instructing him in the game. A natural athlete, Shippen had started playing on his own and quickly showed an aptitude for it under Dunn’s tutelage.
He watched. He learned. He practiced. Shippen improved to such a degree that he soon began giving lessons to the members of Shinnecock Hills.
The members of Shinnecock Hills quickly recognized something remarkable in the young man. He wasn’t simply another laborer helping maintain the grounds. He possessed an uncommon talent for the game. Within two years, Shippen had developed enough confidence in his ability to enter the 1896 U.S. Open.
Pause for a moment and consider the magnitude of that decision. He was just 16 years old, an age where most people have barely discovered what they would like to do with their lives, much less they are capable of. In the current era, teenage golfers commit to the sport early in life and routinely compete at elite amateur events and occasionally appear on professional leaderboards. In 1896, however, organized golf in America was still in its infancy. The U.S. Open itself was only in its second year. In short, Shippen wasn’t merely entering a tournament, he was entering history.
The U.S. Open at the time was a far cry from the major championship that it was to become. It was not even the most prestigious domestic national championship; that mantle belonged to the U.S. Amateur Championship, as virtually all of the prominent golfers of the time were amateurs who played the game as an avocation rather than as a vocation. Anyone who earned a living in via golf was considered to be a “golf professional”, a pejorative category that included caddies and part-time instructors like Shippen. Both the U.S. Amateur and the U.S. Open had held their inaugural competitions at Newport Country Club (R.I.) in 1895, with none other than Charles Blair (C.B.) Macdonald emerging victorious in the U.S. Amateur, solidifying its reputation as the more prestigious event of the two. The early editions of the U.S. Open were a one-day affairs, with the winner determined by 36-hole stroke play. According to the USGA, there were just 58 entrants in the 1896 Open, with only three amateurs in the field including Macdonald. The 1896 Open would be played on Shippen’s home, but managing his game and the golf course would not be the only challenges that he would face (Shippen didn’t “turn pro,” he simply was one because he earned a living from within the game).
Members of Shinnecock Hills who had taken lessons from him were so impressed by his skill and character that they helped pay his entry fee. Their support reflected a growing belief that this teenager belonged among the best players in the country.
Not everyone agreed.
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The field was dominated by Scottish and English professionals who represented the power structure of golf at the time. When they learned that Shippen would be competing, opposition emerged immediately. Several professionals submitted a letter to the membership at Shinnecock and the United States Golf Association, golf’s newly formed national governing body that was the sanctioning body for the championship. The professionals threatened to withdraw from the championship rather than compete alongside players of color.
The threat represented a familiar chapter in American sports history. It was far from the first time that talented Black athletes had been told that their presence was unwelcome. Again and again, institutions have faced a choice between exclusion and principle. In this instance, the decision rested with the young USGA and its first president, Theodore Havemeyer.
Havemeyer, a German immigrant who had made a fortune in sugar processing, was a man both confident and resolute in his decisions about the game of golf in America. His response to the threatened racial boycott was simple and unequivocal.
“Gentlemen, you can leave or stay as you please,” responded Havemeyer. “We are going to play this tournament tomorrow — with or without you.”
Those words deserve a prominent place in golf history. Not because they solved racism. They didn’t.
Not because discrimination disappeared. It certainly did not.
The significance is derived from the fact that Havemeyer’s statement established an important principle: talent and competition would determine who played, not prejudice. The threatened boycott collapsed and the tournament proceeded, including the chastened English and Scottish professionals that had suggested the shameful action.
What happened in the competition remains one of the most overlooked achievements in American sports. Competing against seasoned British professionals, Shippen not only held his own — he excelled.
Shippen was paired with Macdonald, even then a powerful and imposing character in the golf world. But Shippen was not intimidated; after the first of the two rounds Shippen was tied for first place with James Foulis, having bested Macdonald by 12 strokes. Macdonald chose to withdraw from the competition and serve only as Shippen’s scorer for the second 18 holes. Shippen remained in contention until a wild drive on the 13th hole led to a disastrous 11. Said Shippen about the hole, “It was just a little, easy par 4, and all I had to do was play it to the right. I played it too far to the right and ended up in a sand road. And I kept hitting it in that sand road until I finally finished with an 11.”
According to the USGA, Foulis came in with 74, a record-low single-round score that would stand for seven years until the rubber-core ball would come into use. He won the championship by three strokes over Horace Rawlins, the defending champion while Shippen finished tied for fifth place with H.J. Whigham, an amateur from Chicago. Shippen was seven strokes behind Foulis, the exact number of strokes he lost to par on the 13th hole in the afternoon round. He won $25 for his efforts but lost considerably more on the unlucky 13th.
Measured in modern dollars, the prize money was modest. But measured in historical significance, it was priceless. Shippen had demonstrated that he belonged. More importantly, he had shown future generations of golfers what was possible.
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Shippen made golf his career and his life. He played in four more U.S. Opens — in 1899, 1900, 1902, and 1913 — with his best finish another tie for fifth in 1902. In the 1913 Open won by Francis Ouimet, Shippen finished far behind the leaders, but had one of only 11 rounds under par in the entire championship. Sadly, no African American would play in the national championship until 1948, when Ted Rhodes made the field for the U.S. Open at Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles.
Shippen worked at several golf clubs along the East Coast, teaching many wealthy white club members such as steel magnate Henry C. Frick, diplomat and socialite James Cromwell, and former New Jersey Governor J.S. Freylinghuysen. For a time, Shippen was the greenskeeper at Macdonald’s National Golf Links in Southampton, New York, and was part-owner of a now-defunct course he designed in Laurel, Maryland.
Shippen’s longest-lasting position was at Shady Rest Golf Course in New Jersey, the first African American-owned country club in America that counted notables such as Count Basie, Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington among its patrons. Shippen worked there from 1932 until his retirement in 1964. As was the case at his previous stops, Shippen did it all at Shady Rest, serving as head pro, greenskeeper, tournament director, and club maker. Sources vary on the exact date, Shippen died of natural causes on or about May 15, 1968, at the age of 88 in a nursing home in Newark and was buried in the Rosedale Cemetery in Linden.
Too often, the history of African Americans in golf begins with Charlie Sifford’s successful fight to break the PGA’s Caucasian-only clause in the 1960s. Sifford’s accomplishments deserve every bit of the recognition they receive. But the timeline is incomplete without Shippen.
Decades before Sifford challenged segregation at the highest levels of professional golf, Shippen was already proving that Black excellence could thrive in a sport that many believed should remain exclusive. He did so not through protests or headlines, but through performance.
In an era when opportunities for Black golfers were severely limited, Shippen embodied professionalism, perseverance and dignity. He became the kind of figure who quietly influenced everyone around him.
Perhaps that is why his story still remains underappreciated. American culture tends to celebrate loud victories and dramatic confrontations. Shippen’s greatness was expressed differently. He wasn’t interested in self-promotion. He wasn’t building a personal brand. He wasn’t seeking fame. He simply loved golf, and he excelled at it. And through his excellence, his impact extended far beyond tournament scores.
During his lifetime he was never accepted for membership in the PGA of America, which didn’t rescind its Caucasians-only clause until 1961. But in 2009, when the organization granted posthumous membership to a group of African American professionals who had been denied the opportunity, the list was headed by John Shippen. The honor was significant, but it was also overdue.
Recognition matters because history matters. Every generation deserves to know whose shoulders it stands upon. A special spotlight must be cast by society onto those who have set a standard not only for athletic achievement but for exceptional courage and integrity. John Shippen is such a figure.
When the U.S. Open returned to Shinnecock Hills in 1986, television viewers were introduced to Shippen’s story through a feature highlighting his contributions to golf history. For many watching, it was the first time they had ever heard his name. The television audience discovered what those who knew him already understood: the quiet, diminutive club professional was actually a giant. There was something fitting about the revelation of Shippen’s import to the game. People who knew Shippen often remarked upon his humility. He never sought to become a symbol. He never demanded recognition. He simply pursued excellence and allowed his life to speak for itself.
I have been a golf journalist for 20 years, covering the game domestically and internationally. I like to think that I have made a few people think or act with courage or grace through my work. But it surprises and saddens me that a man of Shippen’s import to the game, a man who changed the trajectory of American golf has become a footnote.
Today, as golf continues its journey toward greater inclusion and diversity, Shippen’s story feels more relevant than ever. The game is richer because pioneers like him refused to accept limitations imposed by others.
The next time we celebrate golf’s breakthrough moments, we should remember that many of them began with a teenager from Washington, D.C., standing on the first tee at Shinnecock Hills and refusing to back down.
His name was John Shippen. He was the first American golf professional to play in the U.S. Open. He challenged prejudice before most Americans even knew golf existed. And while history may not always place him in the spotlight, every golfer who believes the game should be open to all walks in the footprints he left behind.